Like many words that have found their way into the British Army’s common vocabulary Sangar has its origins in India. According to uncle Wikipedia it comes from the Persian for stone (san) and built (gar) although a more learned source describes a more complex origin;
The etymology of this word will be traced in Pushto and other languages of Indian sprachbund (Indian language union or linguistic area). Lahnda: sãgaṛh m. ʻ line of entrenchments, stone walls for defense ʼ.(CDIAL 12845) گ • (sang) m, Hindi spelling: संग stone, weight; association, union (Persian. Hindi)
Whatever the origin it was commonly used by the British Indian Army to describe a small temporary fortified position used on the North West Frontier where it was impossible to dig trenches.
The official description is;
A sangar is a protected sentry post, normally located around the perimeter of a base. Its main function is to provide early warning of enemy/terrorist activity/attack in order to protect forces both within the base and those deployed within sight of the sangar
Originally using stones and rocks the Sangar developed to include sand bags, construction materials and in some cases, concrete culvert pipes.
Wherever the British and Commonwealth Armies fought they would make use of sangars.
The Britain’s Small Wars web site has good photographs of Argentine sangars around Stanley, click here
In Northern Ireland the sangar was developed even further to include RPG screens, bulletproof glass observation panels and sophisticated surveillance equipment.
In Afghanistan the Sangar has been transformed by Hesco although wriggly tin, timber and sandbags are still in widespread use.
Stones and rocks are so last century and with the advent of Hesco and Defencell gabions the build times and resources used have greatly reduced.
They even get the occasional VIP visitor
The website of the Coldstream Guards has a good article on the Royal Engineers production of a Hesco Sangar, click here for some great before and after images.
In my post on Generic Base Architecture (GBA) and FOBEX I had a look at deployable Super Sangars and the Marshall Safebase system
Although not as sexy as the exotica on display at FOBEX the latest evolution of the humble sangar is the EES, the Expeditionary Elevated Sangar.
The EES is a prefabricated kit of parts with the elevation being taken care of by a Cuplock scaffold tower. Cuplock scaffolding has been used for many years in the Army but mainly for elevating water tanks, see the details on my post on water supply.
The Cuplock scaffolding and DuAl beam system (data sheets here and here)is made by Harsco Infrastructure (formerly SGB), a British company, although it is widely copied.
It uses an innovative node point that allows up to 4 components to be connected at the same point.
The loading jib on new Iveco Tracker Self Loading Dump Truck (Protected) is long enough to fill the Hesco bastion containers but where this or other long reach plant is not available they have to be filled by hand, lifting 16 tonnes of aggregate in bergens, nice!
The EES is a clever design because it minimises the use of labour and it is labour that is expensive. It also means that a finite number of always in short supply combat engineers can ‘do more’
So how much is one of these marvels of British military engineering?
We can get a few clues by looking at the military aid budget and export control publications. One source lists the cost of an EES at £25,942 and another describes how five of them cost £120,921.
All of them were gifted to Afghanistan.
9 Responses
That Omani photo: some bloody good dry stone work there. I remember as a kid in Wharfedale being asked – “our kid” – to put a stone on the last course by a waller. I thought it was great, said I’d love to do the job. “Don’t let him! like cyanide in the blood..”
hmmm….Not sure on this. Nothing beats Terra-firma as a foundation. Being up in the air on an exposed position with wooden boards under foot and no cover for the struts propping you up? So if a shell, rpg or other hit’s under the Sangar and detonates in the struts holding this up what then? A normal Sangar doesn’t have this weakness.
Unless of course it is designed to be completely encased in HESCO, then that would make sense, but the ones in the Photo’s above aren’t.
TD
Most interesting post.
As far as the armoured sangar idea is concerned (e.g. the Marshall Safebase), do you happen to know what material(s) the armour consists of?
Mike, and an RPG hitting a sanger at ground level is going to spew rock sharpnel out the other end.
Either way, you take your chances. I’m not too worried about the RPGs though, look at the placement of the sanger, behind a preexisting HESCO wall. The struts are protected from the front and side, with only a limited number of angles for the shot and most RPGs are shaped charges anyway, which gives a very narrow damage cone.
As for shells… run!! He won’t be shooting at the struts, he’ll shoot the sanger post directly and tear it up.
“Unless of course it is designed to be completely encased in HESCO, then that would make sense, but the ones in the Photo’s above aren’t.”
An acceptable risk in order to dominate a larger area of ground. Stagging on is shit for many reasons!
@Phil Agreed that being on Stag isn’t great but that doesn’t mean you should tolerate a bad design, or rather a good design which is being implemented badly .
Dominating the ground is fine, just like Castles of old, the high ground or observation positions are always of great utility. In a number of the pictures above there is no HESCO or cover around the Struts on the Sangar with a direct line of sight from outside. Like this one.
(See Cuplock EES Sangar above to see that SANGAR is exposed)
Granted a direct hit from an RPG/Shell is a “bad day” but what of PK’s or Dhsk rounds inbound or any other 10 a penny LMG/MG/HMG? 3ft of Dirt filled HESCO is better than a lattice work of metal which will deflect / splinter or shatter incoming fire and the last thing you need is people inside the compound becoming casualties from rounds passing under/through/ richoceting from the struts into the compound. The lack of a solid floor to the top of the tower is also a weakness, HESCO is like LEGO and pretty cheap and quick to build, why not make use of it properly rather than coming up with another system when you can just stack the things in to Turret based shapes and add a reasonably sturdy Roof to it?
ME, your observation point is backwards. The pictures were taken inside the base facing out. Look at the other side of the sanger, the part screened by the HESCO wall. That is the part that is facing out.
Observer has it, that CP isn’t finished yet and you’re looking at it from the rear and with no camouflage. There will be more Hesco going up, just that the tower gets put up early so the build itself has better force protection.
The thing with Hesco sangers is that they need to be rebuilt every so often.
Mike, not sure on the Safebase armour although I expect it is something off the shelf from NP Aerospace or other supplier.
On the EES, you have to understand that defensive works evolve, I would imagine the point of EES is to get something at height, with a reasonable level of protection in a more than reasonable time frame completed by a less than reasonable level of resource!
It can then be consolidated, extra protection, concealment etc
Its a quick build kit of parts that, as phil says, allows the local ground to be dominated
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